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Coca-Cola
Glasses should be thin, and hold not over 8 ounces. Draw only 1 ounce and of coca-cola to the glass (one part of coca-cola to seven parts of soda water, the glass (one part of coca-cola to seven parts of soda water, Draw only 1 ounce and no stronger). Then fill the glass with a large stream of soda water, and stir thoroughly with a spoon. A dash of American Celery Tonic Extract greatly improves this drink.
This is a soda-fountain dispensing formula rather than a kitchen recipe: the whole thing hinges on the syrup-to-water ratio and on the water being cold and hard with gas.
- The garbled textThe passage as printed repeats a clause twice, evidently a typesetting slip. The instruction is simply: 1 ounce of Coca-Cola syrup, then soda water to fill, at roughly one part syrup to seven parts water.
- The ratio is the recipeOne ounce of syrup in an 8-ounce glass leaves 7 ounces of carbonated water. The text's own "Draw only 1 ounce and no stronger" shows operators were being warned off a heavier pour.
- SyrupCoca-Cola fountain syrup is still made and sold to the trade in bag-in-box; cola syrup is also sold in pharmacies as an anti-nausea remedy, though not necessarily under the Coca-Cola name. It is not the same as bottled Coca-Cola, which is already diluted and carbonated.
- "A large stream of soda water"Fountain apparatus had a coarse stream and a fine stream. The coarse one was used here to knock the heavy syrup up off the bottom of the glass; at home, pour hard from a fresh siphon or bottle of seltzer.
- Stirring versus carbonationThe spoon is there because 19th-century syrup was dense and sank. Stir once, briefly, at the bottom of the glass; extended stirring flattens the drink, and warm glassware does the same.
- Thin 8-ounce glassThin glass is specified, presumably so the glass itself carries little heat. No ice is mentioned; fountain soda water was drawn already cold from a cooler.
- American Celery Tonic ExtractA celery-flavoured extract of the sort fountains stocked, now essentially gone from retail. A splash of celery soda, or two or three drops of celery bitters, gives a similar savoury lift.
- YieldOne 8-ounce glass. Scale by the glass rather than mixing a pitcher, since the carbonation is the point.
Coca-Cola began in 1886 as a fountain syrup, and for its first decade or so that is essentially all it was: druggists bought it by the gallon and dispensed it by the ounce, so the company's real customers were the men behind the marble counters. Manuals like this one existed to keep them honest, since a soda clerk who cut the syrup to save money, or overpoured to please a regular, produced a drink that did not taste like the advertising. The suggested dash of celery tonic extract is a reminder of how fluid fountain practice was: the clerk blended named brands with house extracts, and celery was a fashionable savoury flavour of the period. That freedom did not last; as bottling spread, the formula became fixed and the clerk's hand was taken off the drink.